Introduction

An infinity mirror creates a striking optical illusion - a tunnel of light that seems to tear through space. I built this infinity-mirror table using some addressable LEDs, a Particle Photon and easily obtainable timber supplies.

Check out the video to see the table in action!

If you have any questions about building your own Infinity-Mirror Table then jump down to the comments section at the bottom of this page. If you have any other technical questions then feel free to hit us up on the forums - we're full-time makers and we're here to help with your projects!

Project Description

Skills built during this project

Basic woodworking (Accurate cutting & routing, gluing)

Power-electronics

Addressable LEDs

Materials used

Hardware

All the timber hardware was bought from Bunnings warehouse. Naturally, if you have a well-nourished timber stock you might not need to purchase anything!

Plywood sheet. I used a 12mm sheet of standard ply which is probably on the thin side. I'd use a thicker sheet of marine-ply next time for the higher stiffness, better surface finish and better quality overall.

Build Log

The ply was cut to size with a circular saw, and the edge pieces were mitre-cut. The corners of the edge pieces were routed 4mm deep to accommodate the 3mm-thick mirror, and a 6mm slot routed to secure the acrylic. The following photo shows the configuration (upside down) with the acrylic inserted and the channel in the top ready to accept a dry-fit of the mirror.

The frame was squared up and glued to the plywood base, making sure the mirror and acrylic would slide in one side freely. One side of the frame was secured with screws only (no glue) so that it can be removed to allow the acrylic and mirror to slide in and out.

Applying the reflective film to the acrylic is easy and just takes a bit of care. A spray bottle filled with water and one or two drops of detergent was used to mist the bare acrylic surface before the film was smoothed over it. I assumed the acrylic would be very clean after removing its protective paper cover, but there are still some particles trapped between the film and the acrylic. Perhaps a thorough clean of the acrylic after removing the cover is still necessary - and applying it in a less sawdusty workshop...

With the basic mirror-box complete, the mirror and acrylic were dry-fit and tested with a short strip of LEDs to find the optimal height for the strip. Intuition suggests that dead-in-the-middle would produce the most even reflections, but since the reflective surface is the back edge of the mirror I decided it would be most straightforward to experiment and mark the position where the reflections are most even.

Lengths of square-section dressed pine were cut to length for legs and secured to the table with a long screw, liquid nails, and corner-braces. I originally thought about using brackets for adding strength to the legs, so I cut four plywood plates to thicken up the corners - giving some more material for the bracket's screws to bite into. During the fit-up, I decided on using offcut ply pieces to brace the legs instead - saving a little cash. The image below shows the fit-up of a brace and a bracket to compare the aesthetics. By going with the braces, the strengthening plates have essentially been made redundant.

With the woodworking side of things complete, the table was given a few coats of spray paint. Now onto the electronics!

Electronics

The electronics for this project are pretty simple. A Particle Photon runs the whole show by sending data (through a logic-level shifter) to the LED strip. Three potentiometers form a flexible, reconfigurable user interface.

Fitting LED strips

I broke the power distribution for the LED strip up for two reasons. (1) One panel should be removable for servicing, &: (2) Over 3m, I was worried about voltage drop. For these reasons, I layed out the power distribution as follows, where the bottom strip is on the removable side of the frame because it has wiring only on one side of it.

Cables for the LED strips were routed through the base and frame as shown below - two drilled holes meet inside the frame, with the wires coming out just above where they need to connect to the strip.

The LED strips were superglued in place - care was needed, as the glue squeezes through vias that are on the tape. There's more than one LED on the strip with a little of my skin left on it!

The circuit board was assembled and mounted in a 3D printed enclosure. You may notice some extra real-estate on the circuit board - originally, external voltage regulators were going to be mounted on features included in the case, then they were moved to the board. Finally they were omitted entirely in favour of a large external plug-pack supply. This removes power electronics from inside the sealed project enclosure. The control box is at the front of the table, the opposite side to the service hatch and LED connections, so the cable was routed through some square duct to protect it. This duct is just screwed to the bottom of the table.

Conclusion

This infinity mirror can be knocked up in a weekend and fuses skills like woodworking, electronics and programming. We'd love to hear from you if you're attempting this project (and hopefully improving it) in the comments section below!